LONDON: Germany will launch a new “deep-strike initiative” to provide Ukraine with “several thousand long-range drones” to help it repel Russia’s invasion, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Tuesday.
At a meeting of Ukraine’s allies in London, Pistorius said Germany was “expanding Ukraine’s capabilities to weaken Russia’s war machinery in the hinterland, providing an effective defense.”
That includes boosting “support for the procurement of long-range drones with Ukraine’s defense industry,” he noted.
“As part of this initiative we are concluding a number of contracts with Ukrainian enterprises amounting to a total of 300 million euros” ($350 million), Pistorius said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in May, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that Berlin would help Kyiv develop new long-range weapons that can hit targets in Russian territory.
